Well, Iraq may not have WMDs, but it appears al Qaeda might:

Intelligence indicating that al Qaeda terrorists are seeking to release a chemical or biological agent aboard an airliner, or transport a radiological device in cargo, prompted the cancellation of six international flights scheduled for today and tomorrow, senior administration officials familiar with the reports said yesterday.

The intelligence on a weapon of mass destruction remains vague, and officials remain concerned about hijackings and other methods. The use of such weapons would be a new tactic.

All the canceled flights are overseas flights arriving in the United States, as were the flights by foreign carriers canceled around Christmas. But yesterday, for the first time, a flight by a U.S.-based carrier was canceled. Continental Airlines Flight 17, scheduled to fly today from Glasgow, Scotland, to Los Angeles with a stop in Newark, was canceled because the carrier was “unable to obtain the necessary security clearances from the Department of Homeland Security and their international counterparts,” a Continental spokesman said.

That report comes via WaPo.

The number of flights cancelled today is now seven, and the terror threats have been attributed to al-Qaida:

British Airways and Air France on Saturday announced the cancellation of seven flights to and from the United States because of security concerns. The United States has indications of al-Qaida’s continued interest in targeting international flights to America, a government official said.

[Update to this story]

From FOXNews:

British Airways has canceled three flights from Heathrow Airport to Washington, D.C. and Miami because of security concerns, the airline said Saturday.

BA flight 223 to Washington’s Dulles airport will not fly on Sunday or Monday, but is to depart on schedule at 3:05 p.m. Saturday, said an airline spokeswoman.

Flight 207 to Miami will not fly on Sunday, she said.

We’re staying at Yellow despite the new “credible” threats against British Airways and Air France flights. Here’s the latest from ABC News:

The national threat alert level won’t be raised despite renewed concerns about terrorist threats against British and French flights headed for the United States.

New intelligence indicates that British Airways flights from London to Washington and Air France flights from Paris to an unspecified U.S. city could be terrorist targets, U.S. officials said Friday.

Now, for what’s really interesting … when I went to this link, here’s a screen cap of what I saw. Notice anything? (Click to see the biggie version.)

A fresh story at CNN.com leads:

In the past 48 hours, the United States has received new intelligence that suggests a threat of possible terrorist attacks against the United States using aircraft, government officials told CNN on Friday.

As with the threats near Christmas, the intel notes BA and Air France flights in general, and BA flight 223 in particular.

Government officials said the intelligence mentioned flight paths between London and Washington-Dulles International Airport, and mentioned multiple dates, all within the next few weeks.

“We have a variety of intelligence and we’re sure we’re going to catch Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar this year,” Hilferty said. “We’ve learned lessons from Iraq and we’re getting improved intelligence from the Afghan people.”

Hilferty declined to comment on where exactly bin Laden or Mullah Omar might be hiding, but his optimism coincides with comments from U.S. officials in Washington that the military is planning a spring offensive against Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts.

If you ask Madeline Albright, it’s already a done deal.

AP: Israel Military Blows Up Attacker’s Home

Israeli forces raided the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Friday in response to a deadly Jerusalem bus bombing and demolished the house of the Palestinian policeman who blew himself up in the attack.

FOX:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Seven U.S. solders are dead and one is missing Thursday after an explosion in Afghanistan.

U.S. Central Command (search) said the explosion happened at 3 p.m. near the city of Ghazni, which is 60 miles southwest of Kabul. An Afghan interpreter was also injured in the blast, which occurred while the soldiers were working around a weapons cache.

Several wounded soldiers were evacuated to Bagram Air Base (search) for treatment.

CNN

Three teenagers who have been held with other prisoners at a U.S. military detention camp in Cuba have been released to their home country, the U.S. Defense Department said Thursday.

The teenagers were detained for more than a year at the U.S. naval complex at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Defense Department didn’t identify the detainees’ country.

They were part of hundreds rounded up when the U.S. military ousted Afghanistan’s Taliban regime for providing haven to al Qaeda, the terrorist network blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks. Those held are suspected terrorists or supporters of the Taliban.

HA‘ARETZ: 10 dead in suicide bombing on J’lem bus; Al-Aqsa claims attack

Ten people were killed and at least 50 wounded in a suicide bombing on a bus in central Jerusalem, shortly before 9 A.M. Thursday.

The blast took place on Egged bus No. 19, on the corners of Arlozorov and Gaza streets, very close to the official residence of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was not in the building at the time. The site of the explosion is also close to the Moment Cafe, where 13 people were killed in a March 2002 suicide bombing.

Magen David Adom said that 10 people were in serious condition, 15 had moderate wounds and the rest sustained light injuries. All of the wounded were taken to hospitals in the Jerusalem area.

subtitled: bin Laden hunting

The U.S. military is planning a spring offensive against remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, a senior Defense Department official has said.

Authorities have ordered troops, supplies and logistics into place to carry out the operation, the official said Wednesday, without detailing whether the new offensive would require more troops.

The news comes amid increased violence in Afghanistan and on a day in which the U.S. military said it thinks it will find Osama bin Laden and fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in eastern Afghanistan.

From The Australian :

Eight Palestinians were killed Wednesday in fierce fighting with Israeli troops in Gaza City, a Palestinian hospital official said.

The fighting apparently erupted when the army launched an operation near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, in the heart of the teeming Gaza Strip.

Palestinian militants fired anti-tank missiles and set off an explosive at the troops who fired back, the army said. Two Palestinians were killed in the incident, said Dr. Moawia Hassan, a chief Palestinian hospital official.

Later, the army entered a Gaza City neighborhood near Netzarim, and a fierce battle flared between troops and gunmen.

Six other Palestinians have been killed in that fighting, and several others were wounded, Dr. Hassan said.

The Palestinians have an interesting interpretation of the Law of Armed Conflict, and using Ambulances for cover. From the same article :

Gunmen, some of them hefting rocket launchers over their shoulders, ran past ambulance crews treating the wounded at the scene of the fighting. A group of boys took cover behind a tin shack as gunfire crackled down a street.

As two Israeli tanks rumbled slowly along another road, a rocket propelled grenade whizzed just a few yards (meters) in front of the two vehicles, leaving a streak of white smoke. The tanks swiveled their barrels and fired machine guns.

Meanwhile according to Reuters via the ABC, Israeli Army Radio is putting the Palestinian Death Toll at 13.

Israel’s Army Radio said on Wednesday that 13 Palestinians had been killed during an Israeli raid into the edge of Gaza City.

Palestinian medics said the death toll was at least eight after the deadliest clashes in the Gaza Strip for over one month.

Witnesses said there were more bodies on the ground.

From The Australian :

An explosion today near the British base in the Afghan capital killed a British soldier, the deputy commander of the peacekeeping force said, while police said a suicide attack near the city injured five foreigners.

The nearly simultaneous attacks came during a memorial ceremony for a Canadian soldier killed in a suicide attack in Kabul just the day before.

One British soldier was killed near their base, said Canadian Major General Andrew Leslie, the deputy commander of the security force, speaking at the end of the memorial service at the Canadian base.

Just east of Kabul near the German peacekeepers’ base, a suicide bomber in a taxi detonated an explosion that injured five foreigners, said Qasim Mangal, a local police chief.

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on Central Asia’s “-stans” (including Afghanistan) is courtesy of Nathan Hamm, whose creds include a stint in Uzbekistan as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer. Nathan’s regular blog is The Argus.

TOP TOPICS

• Mikheil Saakashvili won Georgia’s presidential elections on January 4th in an amazing landslide. The election was nearly free of irregularities. Saakashvili’s victory was an incredible landslide. The new President won 96% of the votes and over 80% of the voters turned out at the polls.

• After a variety of issues slowed down the proceedings, Afghanistan’s constitutional Loya Jirga finally adopted a new constitution. The Council on Foreign Relations has a great Q&A on the constitution and Radio Free Europe takes an in-depth look at the new constitution.

• Uzbekistan now has the dubious distinction of being the first former Soviet state to officially receive a failing grade in the State Department’s annual review of human rights records of recipients of aid under the Nunn-Lugar disarmament program. Under this program, the President has the right to waive the human rights requirement on national security grounds, and Bush has done so. Still, failing what used to be an annual act of going through the motions sends a strong signal to Uzbekistan.

• Economic freedom in Central Asia is worse than in any other region of the world. In the Heritage Foundation survey, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan all came in among the ten worst countries in the world.

Other Topics Today Include: US & Russia Square off in the Caucasus; India’s 20-Year Plan & Central Asia; UN Criticizes Turkmenistan’s Human Rights Record; Uzbekistan Risks Sanctions & Losing US Aid Over Human Rights; The ICG Offers Solutions to Rising Extremism; Uzbekistan’s “Princess” Wanted in New Jersey; and, Much More.

Read The Rest…

HA‘ARETZ: U.S. judge orders Hamas to pay $116M in damages for 1996 murder of two

A federal judge ordered the Palestinian militant group Hamas to pay $116 million in damages for the deaths of an American citizen and his Israeli wife near the West Bank in 1996.

The ruling Tuesday upheld a magistrate judge’s decision last month on behalf of relatives of Yaron and Efrat Ungar, who lived in Israel when they were killed.

Family members of Yaron Ungar sued in March 2000 under a 1991 law allowing relatives of American victims of overseas terrorism to seek damages in U.S. courts. Efrat Ungar was an Israeli.

It was unclear whether Hamas would honor the verdict or whether the group has the money to pay. Hamas has had no legal representation in the lawsuit.

Hamas and honor in the same sentence?

JERUSALEM POST: Lebanese official: Hizbullah is our border police

The Lebanese official told an-Nahar that in contrast to America’s view, Lebanese authorities consider Hizbullah a “national guardian”. Lebanese authorities are not ashamed of their open and strong support for Hizbullah, whose military confrontations with Israel have proved beneficial to Lebanon in the past, the official said.

The official also told the paper that the government of Lebanon sees in Hizbullah a counterbalance to Israel’s military strength.

Hizbullah’s military struggle does not harm the security of Lebanon, the official said. He added that the United States, unlike France and the United Nations, has never condemned Israel’s daily violations of Lebanon’s air, land and naval space.

A suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his chest jumped on a lightly armoured Iltis vehicle Tuesday and set off an explosion that killed a Canadian soldier and injured three of his comrades just as their tour of duty was nearing an end.

The two-vehicle patrol was about a kilometre away from Camp Julien, the main Canadian base in Kabul, when the attack happened. The three injured Canadian soldiers were all in stable condition. The blast also killed one Afghan civilian and injured at least eight others, including two who were in critical condition.

[Full story]

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on South Asia, courtesy of Robi Sen.

Hope for Peace?

• India and Pakistan stunned much of the world early this month with their surprise peace talks about Kashmir causing The Instapundit to wonder if it is the beginning of trend? While things do look promising and we all would prefer Pakistan and India to reach a peaceful agreement Sruju seems very skeptical. If somehow India and Pakistan can create a lasting peace, even with all their differences, Pakistan and India may serve as a example for peace and prosperity in the Middle East.
  
  Other Topics Today Include: Pakistan’s Enemy Within; Rogue Scientists; More on the Indian-Israeli-U.S. alliance; Roundup of Islamic terrorism throughout SE Asia

Read The Rest…

JERUSALEM POST/AP: Hamas posts web-shots of Erez suicide bomber

Hamas has posted on its Internet site pictures of its latest suicide bomber posing with her two young children, in seeming defiance of Palestinian critics who say the Islamic militant group was wrong to send 22-year-old Reem Raiyshi on a mission that left her toddlers motherless.

The pictures, which appeared on the Hamas site over the weekend, show Raiyshi in camouflage dress holding an assault rifle in one hand while cradling her 3-year-old son, Obedia, in the other arm.

The boy is clutching what appears to be a mortar shell, and both mother and child wear Hamas headbands. Another picture shows her in a bedroom, gazing at Obedia and her 18-month-old daughter, Doha.

Two weeks ago, Raiyshi left Obedia and Doha with her husband, and blew herself up at a border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, killing four Israelis.

AP:

A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The ruling marks the first court decision to declare a part of the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism statute unconstitutional, said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project.

In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing “expert advice or assistance” is impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.

The ruling marks the first court decision to declare a part of the post-September 11, 2001 anti-terrorism statute unconstitutional, said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project.

HURSO, Ethiopia - Soldiers from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, “The Old Guard”, Bravo Company, established and began operating out of a forward base in rural Ethiopia this week.

The base, named “Camp United” by company soldiers, will be used as a launching ground for local missions, predominately training with the Ethiopian military, said Sgt. 1st Class Fred L. Silhol IV, platoon sergeant of Bravo’s 1st platoon.

The camp and the missions are part of the Bravo Co.’s continued involvement in the Global War on Terrorism as part of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

Camp United, located on a dusty swath of austere land encompassed by the Ethiopian Military Academy in Hurso, is a testament of determination and teamwork, Silhol said.

Before soldiers arrived the camp area was nothing but six slabs of concrete and piles of dirt, Silhol said.

“There has been a 180 degree turnaround,” Silhol said. “In 18 years in the Army, this was the sparsest place I’ve ever lived. It was a barren ground, and they turned it into a functioning forward base for the Old Guard.”

In addition to large living tents, the base now has a functioning operations center, medical center, showers, toilets, exercise and weight room, field sanitation system, and a morale and welfare tent.

“No one here is a skilled carpenter, but they all came together and figured out a way to build this base and to make it their home,” Silhol said.

A few days after establishing Camp United, company soldiers began training with the Ethiopian military. The training will include infantry fundamentals such as marksmanship, physical fitness and movement techniques.

Spc. Brandon A. Thorpe, a Bravo Co. soldier who helped establish Camp United, anticipated the training.

“I’ve looked forward to the training a lot,” Thorpe said. “It will leave a little part of me back here, and the training will continue to help their soldiers long after I’m gone.”

Thorpe said he now feels at home on Camp United and has a sense of accomplishment for the sweat and teamwork he contributed to it.

“I feel very proud of this place because I know we put this together with our hands. We made this happen,” Thorpe said.

Silhol said in addition to training with the Ethiopian military, mission objectives include strengthening long-term relations with the Ethiopian Army and establishing working relations with locals.

Pleased with the progress made towards these objectives, Silhol offered praise for the locals he has encountered.

“The people we’ve come into contact with in Ethiopia have bent over backwards,” Silhol said.

Silhol also said he is impressed with the Ethiopian Army’s strict discipline in a setting of few comforts, an environment he hopes will leave an impression on Old Guard soldiers.

“There is no Morale Welfare & Recreation in the Ethiopian military, and I think our soldiers seeing that the Ethiopian Army works just as hard without these things will have a lasting impact,” Silhol said.

Company soldiers will continue to operate CJTF-HOA missions out Camp United for the next several months.

JERUSALEM POST: ‘Computer bomb’ intercepted en route to Tel Aviv

Hidden inside a computer screen, explosives that were to be used for a suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv were retrieved by Israeli security forces
operating along the Green Line, near the Israeli settlement of Elkana.

Acting on intelligence information received from a Palestinian terrorist captured last week in Nablus, Israeli security forces operating near Kafr A-Zawiya on Sunday retrieved the bag rigged with explosives, hidden inside a computer screen.

Ahmed Ibrahim Ashker,18, a Tanzim fugitive arrested by security forces on January 21, was to have perpetrated the attack which was planned by head of the Fatah Tanzim in the Balata refugee camp, near Nablus, Hisham Abu Hamdan, 22.

After Dark: Palestinian Edition?

Many readers have supported us with donations, which we appreciate. But the best way to support The Post is with traffic. So with the final push in New Hampshire to get out the vote, we ask that you help us “Get Out The Link.”

Support Command Post this Monday by sending the www.command-post.org URL to everyone in your contact list who you think might enjoy the site. We’re not picky: we just want to introduce people to The Command Post, and think the day before the primary is a great day to do so.

So “Get Out The Link” on Monday the 25th, and thanks for reading The Post!

HA‘ARETZ: Hamas proposes 10-year truce for Israeli pullback

A top official of the main Palestinian militant group, Hamas, has said it could declare a 10-year truce with Israel if Israel withdrew from territory occupied since 1967.

Abdel Aziz Rantisi told Reuters late on Sunday that Hamas had come to the conclusion that it was “difficult to liberate all our land at this stage, so we accept a phased liberation”.

“We accept a state in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. We propose a 10-year truce in return for [Israeli] withdrawal and the establishment of a state,” he said in a telephone interview from hiding in the Gaza Strip.

CNN reports that a woman made it through airport security at New York’s LaGuardia airport with stun gun and a knife in her purse.

After a layover in Detroit, on her way to Denver, she realized what she had in her purse and alerted a flight attendant. The plane was met at the gate by security personnel and the woman was taken into custody for questioning. She was released without charges.

From California Yankee.

JERUSALEM POST: Jordan: Arab states should condemn suicide attacks

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher said Sunday that Arab states need to explain their peace proposals to Israelis and take a strong stand against suicide bombings that have claimed hundreds of Israeli lives in the past three years of violence.

“We have not publically, clearly, unequivocally taken a stand against suicide bombs,” Muasher declared at a meeting of business and government leaders in the Swiss Alps. “We have not told the average Israeli citizen that suicide bombs are wrong from a moral and political point of view.”

From The Australian :

Two Buddhist monks and a policeman have been killed in Muslim-majority southern Thailand in attacks believed to be linked to separatist unrest in the region, the government and police said today.

”Two monks were killed while they were walking to receive alms and one monk was seriously hurt at about 6am” this morning (local time) in separate but simultaneous attacks, police in Yala said.

“A policeman was also shot dead late Friday in Ying-or district in neighbouring Narathiwat province.”

Thailand’s southern region was rocked by a series of attacks on government targets earlier this month which left six people dead.

I’ve spent some time in Thailand, and if there’s anything guaranteed to provoke a “disproportionate response”, it’s the slaughter of Buddhist Monks.

HA‘ARETZ: Two Palestinians shot dead near Gaza Strip security fence

Two Palestinians were shot dead by Israel Defense Forces soldiers Saturday near the security fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, the IDF and Palestinian medics said.

Palestinian sources later said the two were members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is linked to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.

They identified the men as Ashraf al-Imbayed, 25, who was wearing a military-style jacket, and a distant relative from the same family clan, Samir al-Imbayed, 23.

An IDF spokesman said the two were shot as they approached the soldiers who suspected the men intended to set off an explosive charge.

The soldiers found binoculars and mobile phones on the bodies, the spokesman said.

The Al-Aqsa Birdwatchers Brigade was unavailable for comment.

HA‘ARETZ: Lebanon rejects U.S. demand to rein in Hezbollah

ebanon’s government on Friday said a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed an Israeli soldier along the border was an act of self-defense, brushing aside demands by the U.S. ambassador that the government clamp down on the guerrillas.

After brushing aside the demands, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud offered to repeat his statement at the same time as Bashar Assad would drink a glass of water.

CNN: U.S. freezes Saudi charity assets

The United States and Saudi Arabia are asking for international help to block the assets of a Muslim charity accused of backing terrorist groups, including al Qaeda.

Four branches of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation — in Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania and Pakistan — were added to a U.S. list of groups and individuals suspected of bankrolling terrorism, effectively freezing any assets they hold in the U.S.

Last year, Saudi Arabia ordered Al-Haramain to close all of its overseas branches, but the Treasury Department said the branches in the four countries affected by Thursday’s announcement continued to operate.

JERUSALEM POST: US: Lebanon must cease support for Hizbullah

US Ambassador to Lebanon Vincent Buttle announced that the US blames the Hizbullah for escalating violence along Israel’s northern border, reported ynet Thursday.

Buttle said he informed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri that Secretary of State Powell considers Hizbullah’s continued provocations harmful, and that the Lebanese government should immediately cease supporting the organization.

JERUSALEM POST: British MP says she understands suicide bombers

A British Parliament member stirred controversy Thursday night after saying in an interview to Sky News that she understands why some people became suicide bombers.

“It is out of desperation and I guess if I was in their situation, with my children and grandchildren, and I saw no hope for the future at all, I might just think about it myself,” liberal democrat Jenny Tonge said.

What kind of desperation is it, you ask. Well, let’s take the most recent example of a Palestinian suicide bomber, shall we? The mother of two who blew herself up at Erez Crossing…

According to CAMERA:

Israel’s largest circulation daily, Yediot Ahronot, reported on January 18th that Raiyshi’s husband, a member of the terrorist Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), forced her to stage the attack to redeem “family honor,” and that her lover, also of Hamas, supplied the bomb.

So, Jenny Tong, did the Israelis force her to cheat on her husband, causing him to force her to go out and blow herself up?

UPDATE:
She’s been removed from her position as spokeswoman for children’s affairs.

JERUSALEM POST: ZAKA wants to send blown up bus to the Hague

Amidst Israel’s preparations for the hearing on the security fence in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, ZAKA (Disaster Victims Identification Organization) has suggested sending a display of a wrecked, charred bus to drum up support for Israel’s argument that the fence is necessary for self-defense.

The idea has been repeatedly rejected by the Foreign Ministry, for fear of harming Israel’s international image and tourism. However, the Ministry has announced that it is not opposed to the idea.

JERUSALEM POST: New bus security system approved

Transportation Minister Avigdor Lieberman authorized the use of a new security system for public buses on Thursday, which can detect suicide bombers and prevent them from boarding the vehicles.

The system, jointly developed by the Transportation Ministry and the Israel Military Industries, consists of a barrier for the bus’ front door, explosives detectors and a back door to be used only for exiting the bus.

The driver will have control over the front door barrier and a passenger will only be allowed to board the bus after the driver presses a button.

Explosives and metal detectors will assist the driver in inspecting the passengers before they board the bus.

From Jane’s:

US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld is considering plans to expand the global war on terrorism with multi-pronged attacks against suspected militant bases in countries such as Lebanon and Somalia…

Sending US troops into lawless Somalia would not be new, nor is it likely to cause serious diplomatic waves. Covert US forces have periodically infiltrated the country over the past two years in order to conduct surveillance and even snatch [Al Qaeda] suspects…

However, sending US special forces into Lebanon - and in particular an area like the Bekaa Valley (which is virtually Syrian territory) and where the bulk of Damascus’ military forces in Lebanon are deployed - would be an entirely different matter. Deployment of US forces in the area would almost certainly involve a confrontation with Syrian troops.

That may well prove to be the objective, since the Bush administration is currently stepping up pressure on the Damascus regime in a bid to force it to cut off all support for radical Palestinian groups which have been targeting Israel during the three-year-old intifada. Washington also wants Syria to abandon its weapons of mass destruction and to withdraw all its forces from Lebanon, a virtual satellite since Syria moved in with tacit US support in 1990 as part of a strategy to end Lebanon’s civil war.

The US administration has long considered Damascus as a prime candidate for ‘regime-change’ (along with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and possibly even Saudi Arabia). Syria, once a powerhouse of Arab radicalism that could not be ignored, has been seriously weakened, both militarily and politically. Washington may feel that the time is coming to oust Bashir Al-Assad and the ruling generals. Targeting Syria via Lebanon, the only concrete political influence Damascus has to show following decades of radical diplomacy, could prove to be a means to that end…

Moreover, since the 11 September 2001 attacks, Washington has been keen to prove that Hizbullah has a global reach, and is thus a legitimate target for its war on terrorism. Thus far, US intelligence services have been unable to produce compelling evidence supporting this claim. So instead of launching military strikes, the Bush administration has sought to weaken Hizbullah by putting pressure on Iran, the movement’s ideological mentor, and on Syria, which has used the Shia militants as what amounts to a proxy force against Israel over the last 20 years…

Washington’s own focus on Hizbullah has intensified amid claims that the movement has links with Al-Qaeda (even though Hizbullah is staunchly Shia, while Al-Qaeda’s religious ideology stems from the puritanical Wahhabite sect of Sunni Islam). Whether there is any actual operational alliance between Hizbullah and Al-Qaeda remains highly questionable.

[via Noah Shachtman]

Army News Service

lWith her husband and five children in the military, Terri Lamb said she doesn’t mind when friends mention the movie “Saving Private Ryan” or compare her family to the Sullivan brothers. “To me, it’s a real honor to compare them to a family that sacrificed so much,” Terri said of the five Sullivan brothers who all perished aboard the USS Juneau when a torpedo sank the ship during World War II. “I look at it as if they are true patriots.”

Terri admitted that when her husband Sgt. Maj. Mike Lamb was deployed to Bosnia last year and she heard that her son Spc. Jason Lamb was about to deploy to Afghanistan, she was initially concerned. “That made me just a little bit nervous,” Terri said.

Now her son Spc. Richard Lamb is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in the spring with a 25th Infantry Division unit out of Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii. Her oldest son Spc. Scott Lamb is now at Fort Polk, La., but he is scheduled to deploy with the 25th Inf. Div. to Afghanistan at the end of the summer.

Her son-in-law, Spc. Jerry Diaz, is already in Afghanistan with the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y. And her daughter, Airman Renee Lamb, could possibly deploy to Afghanistan in April, Terri said. Spc. Timothy Lamb with the Indiana National Guard is the only son not yet scheduled to deploy.

But Terri is taking the deployment news in relative stride these days. “I’m very proud of them,” Terri said. “It’s amazing that they’ve all gone this route. They’re doing it for very unselfish reasons.” One of the amazing aspects, Terri said, is that neither she nor her husband encouraged their children to join the military.

“I was very much reluctant to encourage them to join the Army,” said Sgt. Maj. Mike Lamb who serves with the Army Training and Doctrine Command headquarters at Fort Monroe, Va. He’s the top enlisted Soldier in the office of the TRADOC Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Training. “Neither my wife nor I pushed them in any direction. It was their decision,” he said. “I didn’t want them to feel any pressure.”

“I encouraged them to go to college,” said Terri, who works as an academic adviser for St. Leo University. Despite that, four of her children enlisted in 2001, even before Sept. 11, within a period of less than six months. And both parents said they are extremely proud of the decisions their sons and daughter made.

During holiday visits, Terri said it’s easy to gather the family in one room. “We just yell `specialist’ and everybody comes running,” she said.

In Terri’s job as a college counselor, she works at the post Education Center at Fort Eustis, Va., where she recommends course direction for Soldiers. She said a number of her clients recently returned injured from Iraq or Afghanistan, and she feels a special tie to all of them. “Any Soldier who comes to my door is part of my family too,” Terri said.

via Sgt. Hook

BAGRAM, Afghanistan, Jan. 21, 2004 – The more than 200 Republic of Korea soldiers serving at the air base here welcomed their president’s top military adviser for a Jan. 19 visit.

Retired Lt. Gen. Hee-Sang Kim, accompanied by Maj. Gen. Ki Seok Song, operations director for the South Korean joint chiefs of staff, stopped in Bagram as part of a tour to deliver words of support from the South Korean people to their soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Iraq in support of the global war on terrorism.

Bagram is home to three deployed South Korean units: the “Dong-yi” medical group, the “Da-san” engineer group and a small civil affairs unit that is part of the Parwan Provincial Reconstruction Team.

In the evening, all of the South Korean soldiers here gathered in the Enduring Faith chapel to hear a message from Kim about the importance of their work in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s situation today is the same as that in Korea 50 years ago after the Korean War, Kim said. He told the soldiers the work they’re doing gives hope to the Afghan people and helps them develop their country, and he expressed South Korea’s pride in their performance.

Since arriving in Afghanistan in late August, the current engineer group has completed 46 construction projects, the biggest of which was the expansion of the Bagram airfield’s taxiway and runway.

The medical group, the fourth Korean unit of its kind to be deployed to Afghanistan, has treated more than 16,000 Afghan patients since arriving here in late August. In total, the four medical units have treated more than 84,000 Afghans over the last two years.

For medical group interpreter Sgt. Andrew Kyungyoon Kim, and many others, it was a surprise to see such a high-ranking government official come all the way to Afghanistan to visit a relatively small group of soldiers.

The sergeant said one of the most impressive aspects of the entire visit was a simple gesture made by the distinguished visitor.

“We had spent a lot of time setting up a special room for him and his entourage, but he said he wanted to sleep in the tents with the soldiers,” said the translator. “It showed me that they wanted to feel what we are feeling out here.”

Welcome! Our goal is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Today’s “Winds of War” is brought to you by Dan Darling of Regnum Crucis.

TOP TOPICS

• Did Iran assist al-Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks? According to a witness in the case of accused Hamburg cell member Abdelghani Mzoudi as reported in Der Spiegel, that indeed appears to be the case. I’m still looking for a better translation, but in the meantime you can read my own translation via Alta Vista. Rantburg poster True German Ally (who lives up every bit to his screen name) has his own translation - it’s very chilling and a lot better than my own. Still, take a deep breath and remember the “7-day rule” for news like this.

• In recent weeks, Pakistan has launched series of crackdowns on both al-Qaeda as well as its domestic affiliates. I have a general round-up of the crackdown here as well as some thoughts as to just who the captured al-Qaeda leader in Karachi might be.

Other Topics Today Include: Iraq Briefing; Iran Reports; al-Qaeda training camps in Saudi Arabia; Russians destroy major armed formations in Chechnya; Basayev rants and raves; Victory Day bombing mastermind identified; FIS wants to negotiate; NPA forms an alliance with MILF; Saif al-Adel launches online terrorist manual; Mullah Krekar ordering suicide bombings over the Internet; al-Qaeda’s underground operation in Spain; Turkish al-Qaeda suspects confess training details; and Russia sends an army for beer.

Read The Rest…

More information on Iranian defector Hamid Reza Zakeri, who claims the Iranian connection to Sept. 11 posted below:

• Reader Mike forwarded this link to a Geo-Strategy Direct brief posted on 2003-03-03 at Middle East Information Center. In notes, in part: “Al-Qaida had extensive contacts with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, as well as with an elite military unit which helped the terrorists train and plot attacks against Americans, according to a former intelligence officer who recently fled Iran.” (Note that this post is nearly a year old.)

• Insight posted a piece titled Defector Alleges Iranian Involvement in Sept. 11 Attacks on June 10, 2003.

• Perhaps even more intersting is this post by Iranian blogger Iranian Girl, who wrote about Zakeri on Aug. 27, 2003, noting: “I don’t know if you have heard about Hamid Reza Zakeri or not, the one who showed truth to the world about some important secrets like relationship of Iran’s government with Al Qaeda, everything about Iran’s program of mass distraction [sic].” She also notes that Zakeri had a blog, but the links are now broken.

This Chicago Tribune article was just forwarded to Command Post by Blog Iran: Surprise Iranian Witness Delays Verdict in Sept. 11 Trial in Germany.

On what had been the eve of his widely expected acquittal, the trial of the second person charged by German authorities as an accomplice of the Sept. 11 hijackers was thrown into turmoil Wednesday after prosecutors disclosed the existence of a surprise witness purporting to link Iran to the hijackings.

The mysterious witness, who goes by the name Hamid Reza Zakeri and claims to have been a longtime member of the Iranian intelligence service, is said to have told German investigators that the Sept. 11 plot represented what one termed a “joint venture” between the terrorist group al-Qaida and the Iranian government.

Sources familiar with the witness’ story, greeted with pronounced skepticism by some German intelligence officials, say he also implicates the defendant, a 31-year-old former Moroccan student named Abdelghani Mzoudi, as a knowledgeable participant in the hijacking plot.

Read the rest.

The military tribunal process for terror detainees won’t be such a closed process, according to the Armed Forces Press Service:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21, 2004 – Human rights organizations will closely monitor every step they take. Judicial activists will analyze everything that takes place in the courtroom. And both U.S. and international news organizations will report the day-to-day proceedings they will be a part of.

In short, the eyes of the world will be upon two retired generals working with the military commissions formed to try detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The two generals are Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway and retired Army Maj. Gen. John D. Altenburg Jr., and they will steer the tribunals under international scrutiny.

More:

The president has determined that six detainees are eligible to be tried by military commissions, though the actual decision whether to charge someone will be made by Altenburg. Hemingway declined to estimate when trials might begin, and he described his and Altenburg’s appointments as the next logical step in the military commissions process.

Altenburg said the setting for the trials will be similar to any courtroom in the United States. There will be a place for the witness to testify; an area for the commission members — who in the civilian system would be called jurors — including the presiding officer; a table for the accused and the defense lawyer; and one for the prosecution. A court reporter also will be present.

He said the trials would take place in a dignified setting appropriate to the process of justice.

Apparently, the Bush Administration believes the more transparency, the better. Given the nature of the crimes and attempted crimes involved, the eventual trials of the likes of Khalid Sheik Mohammed look to be as riveting as they will be emotional.

(Cross-posted at Late Final.)

Al-Qaida has foiled an attack by Saudi security forces on its members in Riyadh, Islamist websites have reported.

Two websites carried a statement on Tuesday attributed to the “Al-Qaida Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula” outlining how the attack was thwarted.

The group “was tipped off by elements within the Saudi security service about an impending attack against the mujahidin, who were in a public place in Al-Rabwa neighbourhood of Riyadh”, the statement said.

[al Jazeera alert]

BAGRAM, Afghanistan, Jan. 20, 2004 – On Jan. 6, a series of explosions ripped through the east side of the city of Kandahar, and 11 days later the effects of those explosions were still evident on the children in the 452nd Combat Support Hospital here.

As many as 14 people were killed and dozens were wounded in the double bomb blast in the "spiritual home of the Taliban," just one day after Afghanistan adopted a new constitution, according to a statement from the office of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.

The victims were mainly children from the nearby Abdul Ahad Karzai primary school, named after the president's father, who was assassinated by Taliban agents five years ago. Many were transferred to medical facilities at Kandahar Air Field, while others were evacuated to Bagram.

"We received 11 victims total – all of them being children," said Capt. Mary Jo Literski, a nurse with the 452nd CSH out of Milwaukee, Wis. "For our facility, that's a large number of casualties all at once."

Literski said most of the injuries were shrapnel wounds from the explosion, many of them requiring surgery. "The shrapnel only makes a small puncture mark when it goes in, but then it does a lot of damage on the inside. So most of them needed abdominal surgery to get the shrapnel out and repair the damage to the internal organs," Literski said.

She said that without the medical care provided at the U.S. hospital, many of the children would have died.

"(In Afghanistan) there is a medical system, but it's very limited," Literski said. "Their surgical capabilities are almost not available."

Although the hospital gets casualties from Kandahar often, the large number of children has prompted visits from media and service members concerned with the children's welfare, Literski said.

She said several service members have come to the hospital to visit the children and bring them gifts.

"The kids in general are very gracious of the care that we give them," Literski said. "Initially, they seem frightened because they don't understand the language and they don't understand what we're doing. After sometimes hours and sometimes days, you can see the difference in the children in how they react to you – how they trust you," she said.

The children are not the only ones who benefit from the services provided by coalition forces, since the health care providers get a lot of satisfaction from helping patch up the victims of a country in turmoil, Literski said.

Karzai condemned the attack as an "act of cruelty and barbarism," and said it would only strengthen his resolve to fight terrorism in Afghanistan.

Posted by Chuck Simmins at 09:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

via The Hill, whose headline is a bit strong for what the article states.

House Administration Chairman Robert Ney (R-Ohio) will ask Attorney General John Ashcroft today to investigate a charity event for ties to an Iranian terrorist group backed by Saddam Hussein.

The event, to be held Saturday at the Washington Convention Center, is billed as a “night of solidarity with Iran.” The organizers, led by the Iranian-American Society of Northern Virginia, hope to raise $140,000 to help survivors of the earthquake in Bam on Dec. 26, which killed 30,000 people.

But a number of sponsoring groups have strong ties to the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and the fundraiser may violate the prohibition on providing material support for global terrorism.

The Israelis responded to the Hizbollah trap-attack on the bomb-clearing bulldozer...

JERUSALEM POST: IAF jets bomb Hizbullah bases in southern Lebanon

The IAF hit Hizbullah training bases in Lebanon on Tuesday evening. The two separate strikes were in response to the anti-tank missile attack on an IDF bulldozer along the Lebanese border on Monday in which Sgt.-Maj. Jan Rotzanski, 21, of Herzliya, was killed and another soldier seriously wounded.

All the planes returned safely.

According to Channel 2, six Lebanese were reported missing following the attacks, although reports from Lebanon said there were no casualties.

UNFIL reported that the bulldozer had gone into Lebanese territory, but did nothing about the fact that the Lebanese had placed bombs in Israeli territory in the first place.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In Oruzgan province this weekend, coalition forces did engage five armed adult males who were fleeing from a known terrorist compound. Currently, we have no indications that civilians were killed in that incident. We reiterate our adherence to the rules of land warfare and to stringent rules of engagement.

Saturday evening coalition forces received intelligence that in a compound in Oruzgan province, in the Cahar Cineh Valley, there was a gathering of mid-level Taliban leadership.

Coalition Special Operations Forces and Afghan Militia Forces were sent to capture or kill the Taliban leaders at that compound. At approximately 8:00 p.m. on Saturday we observed 5 armed men leave the compound and move toward the coalition forces which have cordoned off the original compound. The commander on the ground verified that these individuals were indeed armed and, at night, moving toward a known coalition military unit.

At approximately 8:12 p.m. on Saturday an aircraft engaged those 5 individuals in a streambed.

Our forces moved toward the engagement site, but a large massing of armed personnel then came out of nearby compounds and gathered near the streambed. In order to avoid a larger engagement in the area of the compounds that might incur civilian casualties our forces halted and observed the activity from secure positions. Those people near the streambed recovered the bodies from the streambed.

The next day, coalition forces searched a number of compounds and the streambed without finding anything of significance.

In the process of 72 hours of operation in this area, we detained six individuals.

Typically, the Taliban are attempting to spread disinformation, propaganda, in order to discredit the coalition.

Let me lay out the facts,

--the only time of our firing was at 8:12 p.m. on Saturday, not 4 a.m. on Sunday.

--there were no helicopters in the area either at the time of the engagement on Saturday or at 4 a.m. on Sunday.

--at no time in the past 5 days did a US helicopter fire any ordnance of any kind in Oruzgan province.

--at no time during this operation were shots fired from any weapons system, ground or air, at any house compound or walled structure.

--our aircraft did not engage noncombatants. We clearly identified and engaged 5 armed adult males.

We have stringent rules of engagement and we continuously assess and refine those rules of engagement. In this case, as there are allegations of civilian casualties, we have reviewed the incident, but, as I stated above, there is no indication that any civilians were involved.

The coalition's long-term commitment to the people of Afghanistan is unwavering. While we continue to destroy terrorist organizations and their infrastructure, we enable and assist the accelerated growth of Afghan political, civil and military institutions.

JERUSALEM POST: Ya'alon: Arafat is maintaining terror on purpose

Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya’alon accused PA chairman Yasser Arafat of maintaining a constant level of anarchy and terrorism in a calculated effort to promote his own agenda, in an interview on Channel 2 Monday night.

“Arafat has no interest in bringing this struggle to an end,” Ya’alon said. “He initiated it to avoid a political solution. His strategy of bringing about demographic change is one of terror.”

Ya’alon said that any attempt PM Ahmed Qurei makes to deal with that anarchy are torpedoed by Arafat – as were his predecessor’s. “The anarchy is not chaotic,” he said. “It is organized by him.”

Maybe he's trying to win a second Nobel Prize?

Welcome! Our goal is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. In addition, we also have our in-depth Iraq Report.

TOP TOPICS

* What indicators would tell us that we were making significant progress in the War on Terror? What kinds of future events would tell us that our success in this war was in serious jeopardy? Our readers step forward to answer 'Praktike's Questions.'

* Making the world safe for discrimination against women? Team Stryker has a long article covering "sexual apartheid" in the Islamic world, and asking if the USA is doing enough to eliminate it as part of its efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq et. al. Intsapundit has more about Iraq moving family law toward shari'a. Is U.S. forbearance a necessary concession that avoids forcing these issue too soon and picking a fight the USA cannot win - or a kowtow to multiculturalist political correctness that will leave half of these populations enslaved? You decide.

* Armed Liberal takes dead aim at Jeffrey Record's Army War College article criticizing the Iraq war as the wrong move in the War on Terror. The key problem? Mr. Record, he says, fails to acknowledge that 9/11 scale terrorism is a binary agent. Our readers comment.

Other Topics Today Include: Democratic showdown in Iran; Container security; American jihadi arrests, cases & tribunals; Free speech zones - feh; Shari'a in the PA; The Fence; Canadian op in Kabul; US, SK agree on Korean base move; NK famine; French headscraves; Murad Kalam's illusions; Islam & the left.

Read the Rest..

JERUSALEM POST: Passenger shot near Ramallah

Gavriel Abadi, 40, was moderately wounded in the shoulder when a terrorist opened fire at the vehicle he was traveling in on the road between Nahliel and Neveh Tsuf (Halamish), northwest of Ramallah, on Sunday afternoon.

The driver, who alerted security forces, continued toward Neveh Tsuf. Abadi was taken to the Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer.

Soldiers and police searched for the gunman, who fled toward Deir Nazzam and Deir Abu Masha'al.

The Aksa Martyrs Brigades later claimed responsibility, claiming the attack was in response to the attempt to kill Zakkariya Zbeidi, its commander in Jenin, two weeks ago.

Al-Aqsa is an offshoot terrorist organization run by the Fateh Party that Yasser Arafat rules.

CNN:

Pakistani agents staged a pre-dawn raid at an apartment complex Sunday and arrested seven suspected foreign members of the al Qaeda terror group who had been living there for two months, officials and residents said.

There was no word whether the suspects were engaged in an active plot. But officers seized five hand grenades, four handguns, ammunition and maps of Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, an intelligence officer told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The arrested suspects included two Egyptian and three Afghan men, and two Arab women, the officer said.

FOX:

Delta Airlines jet traveling from Germany to the United States made an emergency landing Sunday in Ireland because of a bomb threat.

Frankfurt-to-Atlanta flight number 27 landed at Shannon airport in the west of Ireland after crew discovered a note in a toilet suggesting there could be a bomb aboard the plane, said Siobhan Moore, spokeswoman for airport operating company Aer Rianta.

Irish police said only that the landing was "security-related." Delta confirmed this and said it did not discuss security issues.

REUTERS: Israel Says Hamas Leader Yassin 'Marked for Death'

Israel has "marked for death" Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin, following a suicide bombing that killed four Israeli security personnel in Gaza, Israel's deputy defense chief said on Friday.

The wheelchair-bound Muslim cleric attended Friday prayers at a mosque near his Gaza City home and told reporters he would embrace "martyrdom." A Palestinian cabinet minister said Israel was playing with fire by making the threat.

Happy hunting, IDF.

A recycling company found uranium oxide -- a radioactive material also known as yellowcake -- in a shipment of scrap steel it believes originally came from Iraq), the company said Thursday.

Paul de Bruin, spokesman for Rotterdam-based Jewometaal, said that the shipment was passed on last month from a Jordan metal dealer who was unaware it contained any forbidden materials.

"I've dealt with this man for 15 years and he says he's sure it came from Iraq," De Bruin said. He said Jewometaal had been asked not to reveal the name of the Jordanian exporter while the find was being investigated.

Nuclear experts say that although not highly radioactive, uranium oxide can be processed into enriched uranium usable in a nuclear weapon -- but highly advanced technology is needed.

[FOX]

"2 malls cut walking hours as terror precaution."

I'm just askin'.

Authorities are determining if al Qeada has posted a number of warnings on the Internet that forecast a terror attack that will "destroy an entire American city." There are a number of media sources. One is The Herald, which reports:

US and British intelligence services are investigating a series of alleged al Qaeda internet warnings predicting a terror attack which would "destroy an entire American city". The messages, posted on a number of Islamic websites over the last week, say the countdown to attack has already begun. They claimed it would be "an even stronger strike than nuclear weapons".

They also warn that unless the US and its allies withdraw immediately from Iraq, Afghanistan, and all other Muslim countries, the terror network has ordered the elimination of American leaders and their supporters.

The post of most concern to Western intelligence has appeared three times in three days on a radical Islamic internet forum called the Mujahideen Network …

… A security source said last night: "There is no way of determining whether these warnings are genuine or wishful thinking on the part of extremists. "But there are disturbing parallels with the background threat-level chatter which preceded the September 11 attacks in 2001."

How seriously are the US and UK authorities treating them?

In the current nervous climate (with Britain and many countries still at a heightened state of alert), Western governments are taking the warnings seriously.

But without knowing a specific target, they are limited in what actions they can take.

Over the Christmas/New Year holiday period, US intelligence agencies received information that made them believe there was a risk of terrorists setting off a radiological dirty bomb in a US city, so they dispatched experts to those cities with detection devices. They did not find any bombs.

How important is the internet for al-Qaeda communication?

The internet is invaluable. Before the attacks of 11 September 2001, al-Qaeda's senior leadership preferred to communicate by satellite phone. Now they are much more wary.

They still broadcast their propaganda messages through physical audio tapes but they also use audio messages sent over the internet. They also use it on a daily basis to communicate with each other and their supporters.

The internet is now so well established in Arab and Asian countries that it is relatively easy for terrorists to hide their usage of it among ordinary members of the public.

From Bahrain's Gulf Daily News:

Saudi authorities have discovered a number of camps outside Saudi cities used for training militants to carry out terror operations. An Interior Ministry official said last night that two key militant figures killed in terror sweeps last year - Turki Nasser Al Dandani and Yosif Salih Fahd Ala'yeeri - commanded the camps.More camp leaders are being sought ...

... The desert camps were set up to train militants to use weapons and self-defence techniques and also to prepare them for terror operations. The official did not specify the number of camps that were discovered.

OTB: From the front page of today's WaPo: The Appearance of Change in Iran

The young woman dressed in a manner forbidden by law was complaining about something she saw on a television channel that's illegal to watch.

"The stuff on Euro News," said Nesa Hamlehdar, exasperated. "They show Iranian women in chador. Boys as soldiers. Old cars."

She rolled her eyes. "This is the image the West has of us!"

In Iran, reality looks a lot more like Hamlehdar. Pausing in a fashion mall on her way home from a day of college classes, the 22-year-old language student wore tight bell-bottoms under a tunic cut not like the all-enveloping chador, which translates literally as "tent," but more like the little black cocktail dresses that now pass for outer garments in some parts of Tehran.

There was eyeliner and nail polish. And her scarf was pushed back to reveal fully half her hair -- something officially prohibited shortly after then-President Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr in 1981 explained that women's hair emits rays that drive men insane.

"The limitations that used to be," Hamlehdar said, "do not exist now."

That basic fact of Iranian daily life signals a fundamental shift in politics. The dramatic relaxation of the theocracy's strict official dress code is but the most visible aspect of a grudging yet steady expansion of what Iranians call "personal space." The term describes the realm of purely personal liberties that extends from holding hands in public to watching satellite television without fear of a police raid.

Initially championed by reformers who also demanded political freedoms, these personal liberties are being granted by the conservative Islamic clerics who control the most powerful institutions in Iran's government. The hard-liners, who wrote the rules in the first place, now see a political advantage in allowing them to be widely ignored.

Welcome! Our goal is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Today's "Winds of War" and in-depth Iraq Report are brought to you by Dan Darling of Regnum Crucis.

TOP TOPICS

* The Washington Post takes a look at the prime suspects in the assassination attempt on Musharraf and right now it looks like al-Qaeda, JeM, LeT, and LeJ are the primary suspects. Given the byzantine nature of Pakistani internal politics, it should be interesting to see what action, if any, is taken against the latter three organizations.

* The US is launching a worldwide manhunt for Midhat Mursi, also known as Abu Khabab. Mursi is reputed to be the top scientist for al-Qaeda's chemical and biological weapons program.

* Mansoor Ijaz has an alarming report that the IRGC is sending chemical or biological weapons across the Iraqi border for the purposes of attacking Baghdad as well as planning to launch a massive offensive into western Afghanistan (I assume with the assistance of their proxies there, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ismail Khan). I don't have access to Ijaz's sources, so I have no way of judging the credibility of this information, but his last "big scoop" (that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are likely in Iran and under the protection of the IRGC) was more or less confirmed as well as any new bin Laden report can be by a story in the Financial Times a week or so later.

* The Guardian has a fairly good primer up on al-Qaeda's European network that you can read my analysis of here. I would also note that Winds of Change first mentioned most of the revelations contained within the Guardian over a month ago.

Other Topics Today Include: Iran Reports; USA Homeland Security Briefing; Taliban attacks in Afghanistan; Afghan disarmament underway; MILF perfidy in the Philippines; Thai violence linked to al-Qaeda; Malaysia arrests Thai arms depot raiders; Indonesian nabs JI associate; BBC story on the women of JI; Fazul Abdullah Mohammed's undercover career in Kenya; Nabil Sahrawi interview; US anti-terrorist team bound for West Africa; Saudis acknowledge that al-Qaeda's in the National Guard; Israeli-Turkish alliance; France thwarts a chemical weapons attack; and Baghdad Bob returns to the airwaves.

Read the Rest...

Fox News (tv) is reporting that tests on the ammo that the Sudanese traveler from Washington tried to bring into Heathrow was, indeed, live ammo.

Looking for link.

From Reuters, via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Six people were wounded when a car bomb exploded in front of a church in the centre of the restive Pakistani city of Karachi, police and emergency workers said.

The wounded included two paramilitary soldiers and two policemen who had arrived to investigate a smaller explosion moments earlier, thought to have been caused by a firecracker.

A Reuters correspondent saw four cars that had been set on fire by the blast outside the Holy Trinity Cathedral in the heart of the city.

Several other cars, including two police vehicles, were damaged.

Deputy Inspector General of police Tariq Jameel said the bomb in the car exploded soon after a firecracker was thrown from a passing car.

"We don't know whether it was a time device or a remote control device," he told reporters.

"Obviously, all bomb blasts and other such acts are terrorist activities."

Since Pakistan joined the US-led war on terror in 2001, Karachi and other cities have seen a string of attacks by suspected Islamic militants on Western and Christian targets.

[Sky News]

Police are questioning a 45-year-old Sudanese man who was arrested at Heathrow airport for allegedly carrying bullets.

The man, who had flown in from Washington DC and was intending to fly on to Dubai, was detected after passing though a security check.

From Fox:

Scotland Yard was still questioning the man, who had been in custody about eight hours as of 10 a.m. EST, and would only say that he had been found to be carrying "a quantity of suspected ammunition."

Police officials told Fox News that there were five rounds of suspected ammunition found with the passenger. The man was being held under Section 1 of Britain's Firearms Act because officials are not yet treating the incident as something terrorist-related.

Officials told Fox News that they're trying to determine whether the ammunition was live or something as harmless as a shell casing. They're trying to determine whether the man had the suspected ammunition with him when he boarded the plane at Dulles International Airport in Virginia or whether he got them at Heathrow.

Officials were also looking into an unconfirmed report that the man had overstayed in the United States and was being deported on the Virgin Atlantic flight.

A female Palestinian homicide bomber blew herself up Wednesday at the main crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, killing four other people, emergency officials said.

Israel Radio reported that the four dead were Israelis. Officials said seven other people were wounded.

The Islamic militant group Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, issued a joint claim of responsibility, according to Lebanon's Al-Manar satellite television station.

The young woman was the mother of two children - a three year old and an eight month old.

[Related: Buzzword Alert - Homicide Bomber]

Trent Telenko emails these days to draw attention to a growing issue for the U.S. Army - a shortage of small arms ammunition. Fortunately, some help is planned. But will it be in time? And is there a faster, smarter approach? Winds of Change.NET covers the issue.

[Fox]

On Dec. 5, U.S. officials received specific information that Al Qaeda planned to use explosives on two Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve. Air France subsequently canceled six flights during the holidays based on U.S. terrorism concerns. From Dec. 5 to Dec. 19 the new source revealed potential threats to two more Air France flights and an AeroMexico flight, USA Today reported.

It appears the war on terror is working to a large extent if officials are able to gather information as specific as that and have enough time to head off anything that might be coming.

However, if there are any alarmists out there, you may want to check out this site, which has dire warnings such as:

During a conference early this morning with Mr. Steve Quayle regarding the various threat levels, he pointed out a number of market indicators that are eerily reminiscent of the weeks preceding the attacks on 9/11. It is no secret that there was unsavory market play with certain airline stocks in the days and weeks before 9/11.

They call themselves Northeast Intelligence Network. Read with a few grains of salt, of course. Interesting reading, anyhow.

From OTB:

U.S. to Push Airlines for Passenger Records

The government will compel airlines and airline reservations companies to hand over all passenger records for scrutiny by U.S. officials, after failing to win cooperation in the program's testing phase. The order could be issued as soon as next month. Under the system, all travelers passing through a U.S. airport are to be scored with a number and a color that ranks their perceived threat to the aircraft.

Another program that is to be introduced this year that seeks to speed frequent fliers through security lines in exchange for volunteering personal information to the government.

The two new initiatives will augment a system introduced last week to fingerprint and photograph millions of foreign visitors on arrival in the United States.

***

The TSA said the new computerized system is to provide a more thorough approach to screening passengers. It will collect travelers' full name, home address and telephone number, date of birth and travel itinerary. The information will be fed into large databases, such as Lexis-Nexis and Acxiom, that tap public records and commercial computer banks, such as shopping mailing lists, to verify that passengers are who they say they are. Once a passenger is identified, the CAPPS 2 system will compare that traveler against wanted criminals and suspected terrorists contained in other databases.

[P]rivacy experts are skeptical. Registered traveler is "going to create two classes of airline travelers," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that opposes both programs. Registered traveler, he said, "has no security benefits." Terrorists will learn one way or another how to "game" the system, he said.

***

"These kinds of dragnet systems are feel-good but cost-inefficient," said Richard Sobel, a privacy policy researcher at Harvard Medical School. "The government would do much better using resources to better identify people and deter people who might cause some harm than to use resources devoted to the 99 percent of people who are innocent."

From OTB:

Supreme Court rejects appeal over secret 9/11 detentions

The Supreme Court Monday allowed the government to keep secret information about hundreds of people rounded up under suspicion of terrorism in the months following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The justices without comment refused to accept an appeal bought by the Center for National Security Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank representing Arab-American groups and some civil rights activists.

***

At issue in Monday's ruling was the government's refusal to release information on about 700 mostly Muslim- or Arab-Americans detained by federal authorities. Various media outlets including CNN filed a brief supporting public access to the information.

The center, the Center for National Security Studies, sued to learn names and other basic information about the detainees. The appeal raised constitutional questions under the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and legal questions under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Most of the suspects were held by immigration authorities, and were investigated and questioned for possible terrorism connections. Nearly all were subsequently released, and some were eventually deported for various immigration violations.

[AP via Fox]

The Supreme Court refused Monday to consider whether the government properly withheld names and other details about hundreds of foreigners detained in the months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The high court turned down a request to review the secrecy surrounding detainees, nearly all Arabs or Muslims, who were picked up in the United States immediately following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Many if not most of the more than 700 detainees at issue in the case have since been deported. Some picked up after Sept. 11 were charged with crimes, and others were held as material witnesses. Only Zacarias Moussaoui, who was detained before the Sept. 11 attacks, is being prosecuted in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks.

Been thinking about al Qaeda in Poland recently? According to this Guardian article, you should.

Previously seen as a relative backwater in the war on terror, Europe is now in the frontline. 'It's trench warfare,' said one security expert. 'We keep taking them out. They keep coming at us. And every time they are coming at us harder.'

An investigation by The Observer has revealed the extent of the new networks that Islamic militants have been able to build in Europe since 11 September - despite the massive effort against them. The militants' operations go far beyond the few individuals' activities that sparked massive security alerts over Christmas and the new year. Interviews with senior counter-intelligence officials, secret recordings of conversations between militants and classified intelligence briefings have shown that militants have been able to reconstitute, and even enlarge, their operations in Europe in the past two years.

British police arrested a man before Christmas who was suspected of preparing himself for a suicide bombing and who had links to Al Qaeda, British newspaper The Sunday Times said.

The paper, which did not give a source, said the man in his late twenties was arrested after leaving notes to his family saying he planned to "martyr" himself.

The paper said he was an Algerian asylum seeker.

The man had also shaved off all his body hair, a religious act often observed by would-be suicide bombers so that they are "clean" before entering heaven, the newspaper said.

"I hope you treat me as a hero and a martyr," the man wrote to his sister and mother.

[This story is from ABC Australia, the orginal Sunday Times story is online, but requires a paid subscription to view]

Fox News reports that American Airlines flight 4959 originally scheduled from LaGuardia (LGA) to Reagan National Airport (DCA) has been diverted to Dulles.

Update: Fox reports that the plane has landed. Julie Kirtz "plane has landed." Airport offical Tom Sullivan says that FBI is questioning 23 passengers in lounge...One passenger is still on the plane being questioned.

TSA spokesperson Nico Melendez speaking on Fox .."Passenger passed note to a flight attendant that bomb was on board...so the plane was diverted to Dulles...now screening aircraft and luggage with K9's...As you can see we're still on guard ..taking threats seriously."

CNN:

An American Eagle commuter flight from New York to Washington was diverted Saturday because a threat was made by a passenger "against the aircraft," an airline spokeswoman said.

An FBI spokesperson said the threat involved a note given to someone on the plane. The spokesperson also said a man made demands to be flown to Australia.

[...]

The plane, an Embraer Regional Jet, model 135, usually seats 37 passengers, the airline said. The jet has a range just under 2,000 miles when fully fueled. The air distance between New York and Sydney, Australia is 9,933 miles.

We all know the color codes by heart now. And maybe, like us, you're just a little tired of those stale, boring boxes staring you in the face every time you check what the day's level is.

The editors of The Command Post think a new warning system will make us think differently about these alerts. Maybe if they were done in smiley faces instead of colored rectangles, we would feel more confident about staying vigilant.

And that's where you come in. TCP would like to redesign the boring Adivsory System the government puts out. Let's face it - if it's government issued, it's bland. But why settle for bland when there are a million would-be graphic artists and Photoshop addicts out there just dying to redesign the various levels of threat conditions.

Winning entries will be displayed prominently on the front page of TCP where the usual boring alert sits now (over there - top right).

Examples of altered threat level chart, here, here, here

Here are the rules:

1. You must submit a design that incorporates all five levels. Original here
2. There should be five separate images, each no wider than 150px.
3. You must use the threat phrases (elevated, high, etc.) and colors that Homeland Security uses.
4. All entries with offensive images will be disqualified.
5. The Command Post reserves the right to use the winning image freely, in whatever way it deems appropriate.
6. All entries should be submitted no later than midnight, January 16th (EST).
7. All entries, in addition to the winner, may be used by TCP at any time.
8. Prize to be announced.
9. Send all entries to contest@command-post.org
10. Multiple entries are allowed, but please send each entry separately.

Please include your name and URL (if you have one) with the entry. Entries open to one and all, so spread the word. Good luck!

Note: This is posted on OpEd as well.

A United Express flight which had flown from Chicago to Omaha, Neb., earlier in the day, was grounded in Omaha before returning to Chicago because of a security concern Friday afternoon.

NBC5 reported that a flight attendant going through the plane before takeoff found putty with wires sticking out of it in a lavoratory aboard the plane and the pilots grounded the aircraft as a result. United Express spokesman Jeff Green told NBC5 that investigators tested the putty and found that it was not dangerous.

The flight was scheduled to stop in Chicago at 12:30 p.m. and continue on to St. Louis

Tom Ridge gave a press conference this morning on moving the level from orange to yellow (sherbert to lemonade, as some people say).

Full text of statement:

"Good afternoon. Three weeks ago, the United States Government raised the national threat level from an "Elevated" to a "High" risk of terrorist attack - or as it's more commonly known - from Code Yellow to Code Orange.

Today, based on a careful review of the available intelligence, we have lowered the threat level to Yellow. We are still concerned about the continued threats, but the threat conditions that we've been following have diminished. With the passing of the holidays and many large gatherings that occurred during this time, we have made the decision to come down to Yellow.

When we went to Code Orange on December 21, we asked the nation's governors, mayors, homeland security professionals, international partners and the public to undertake actions that required speed and reach. I'm pleased to report that the level of response and resolve to that call to action was exceptional and virtually unprecedented. Most of you saw the scope of protect
ive measures that were undertaken. You saw an increased police presence at shopping malls, train stations and power plants. You saw planes sitting on tarmacs. Perhaps you stood through longer lines. On behalf of the President and myself, I want to thank everyone who offered their efforts and patience during this time.

I know that we are all thankful that nothing happened. The holidays have passed; the potential danger that large gatherings present during the holidays has passed. They passed safely and without incident. We believe this is a testament to the incredible level of awareness, information sharing and communication that stretched across the country and the world. We know from experience that the increased security and vigilance that accompany a raise in the threat level does make a difference in deterring and disrupting a terrorist attack.

Let me emphasize that, although we have returned to Yellow, we have not let our guard down. Yellow still means that we're at an elevated level of risk. And we will maintain particular vigilance around some critical resources and locales. And so, the force of homeland security continues to move forward.

Just in the last three weeks, we took important steps to increase this nation's level of protection. For example, we issued aviation emergency amendments to enhance security relating to passenger and commercial aircraft flying to, from and over the United States, and provided air cover to several of our nation's cities. We deployed state-of-the-art sensor detection equipment that can readily scan for radiological devices and bioagents. We launched US-VISIT, a program that uses biometrics to expedite the processing of foreign travelers and stop known or suspected terrorists at our borders.

As I mentioned, some of these security steps also led to planes sitting on runways for extended periods of time. Most of you will agree that we always want to put safety first. But we also want to minimize inconvenience. I assure you that we will continue to look for ways to do so.

Everything we do is designed to keep planes flying, bring loved ones closer, enable sports fans to gather, help businesses stay open - in other words, to keep this country moving. And to terrorists who think America would ever do otherwise, this country again has proven you wrong. Your goal is to sow fear. But you will not succeed in the United States of America.

We are a free people. We are united, resilient and resolved. We will continue to go forward with our lives - blessed by our freedoms...and comforted in the knowledge that, across this country and around the world, skilled and dedicated people are at work to keep us safe. Thank you."

Within the next week or so, the government will drop the U.S. terror alert level from orange (high) to yellow (elevated).

Some sectors, such as airports, nuclear facilities will remain on high alert.

While "chatter" about imminent terrorist attacks on the U.S. have lessened in the last week, there is still concern in some quarters about a possible February attack. [This started out with a "DEBKA: Grain of Salt" alert attached to it, but it's being talked about widely around the internet now. Make of it what you will].

This is interesting (from CBS):

In the East Texas hamlet of Noonday -- known for onions, not anarchy -- federal agents arrested a common-law couple last April. They were hiding a weapons cache, including, as CBS News Correspondent Bob McNamara reports, the makings of a sophisticated sodium cyanide bomb capable of killing thousands.

William Krar, 62, with ties to white supremacist groups, pleaded guilty to possessing a chemical weapon and faces life in prison, while 54-year-old Judith Bruey could get five years. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess illegal weapons.

This from Newsday:

The chief of a Saudi charity that has been accused of terror links has been fired, Saudi officials said.

The officials said that Akeel al-Akeel of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation was sacked and replaced by his deputy, Dabbas al-Dabbasy.

The officials, speaking Wednesday on condition of anonymity, said Minister of Islamic Affairs Saleh al-Sheik issued the decision to dismiss al-Akeel, but they did not say when he was sacked or why.

CNN is reporting that the US Government may lower the National Threat Level from orange to yellow within the next week. (If they do, you'll see the indicator at the top of our right-hand column change ... like magic!)

UPI's Claude Salhani says a remarkable change has taken place in Syria of late:

Caught between Iraq and a hard place, Syria's young president, Bashar Assad, has been feeling the heat from Washington lately and began his own offensive -- albeit one of charm and diplomacy.

Although Syria did not make it on to President George W. Bush's initial "axis of evil," it trailed not far behind. In the eyes of some officials in the Bush administration, if Syria did not make the A-list, it certainly belonged in the "Mini-Me" version. Syria still figures prominently, along with other nations the neo-conservatives in Washington would like to see undergo regime change a la Iraq.

Highly unusual for what was once regarded as a reclusive regime -- at least when it came to international travel and high-act diplomacy -- Assad has been hitting the road, trying to improve his country's standing and to seek international support. As indeed Bouthaina Shaaban, a minister in Assad's Cabinet disclosed to United Press International last December, Syria has come to realize it is time to open up to the world.

***

The Syria Accountability Act, passed almost unanimously by both houses of Congress last month and endorsed by President Bush, is in fact aimed at placing greater pressure on Syria, unless it abides by U.S. demands to cooperate and distance itself from what the United States and Israel regard as terrorist groups.

Analysts in the region regard Assad's latest charm offensive as "a turning point in regional politics," something the Middle East could well do more with. As Bush prepares to deliver his State of the Union address Jan. 20, it will be worth watching to see if Syria, given Assad's new initiatives, has moved up or down on the American president's list.

Cross-post from OTB

Mansoor Ijaz has an excellent discussion of Pakistan's history as a conduit for nuclear proliferation. His conclusion:

Having come dangerously close to falling under the U.S. definition of a "rogue" state, Pakistan could now become a beacon for how to responsibly deal with rogue elements inside the state without compromising its sovereignty or dealing a blow to an important cornerstone of the national psyche. Other states (Georgia, for example) with nuclear weapons programs that may also be in the market for selling their secrets might take notice and change course.

To emphasize U.S. concerns, the president (and Congress) should condition all U.S. aid to Pakistan on Islamabad's acceptance of nuclear safekeeping vaults, sensors, alarms, closed-circuit cameras, and other technologies that give Musharraf and his like-minded aides the ability to internally monitor and track Pakistan's nuclear technologies. Simply excusing leakage as the work of "greedy" individuals with their own agendas, as Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman did when the Iranian revelations were made, is neither believable nor an acceptable risk to the safety and security of civilized nations.

Furthermore, a new formula for giving U.S. aid should be devised that is inversely proportional to Pakistan's spending on military and nuclear budgets. The less Islamabad spends of its national wealth on building nuclear bombs that protect no one, the more America should spend on helping Pakistan build schools and hospitals that educate and protect the masses.

Pakistan has the right to maintain its nuclear arsenal for deterrence against regional threats, and perhaps as importantly, for its national dignity. It does not have the right, whether sanctioned officially or not, to assist in the creation of nuclear monsters that seek Armageddon itself. Nor does it have the right to misappropriate American taxpayer dollars in support of actions by the very elements that seek our death and destruction on their misguided path to eternity.

Cross-post from OTB

Welcome! Our goal is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. In addition, we also have our in-depth Iraq Report. Today's briefings are brought to you by Dan Darling of Regnum Crucis.

TOP TOPICS

* Saudi Arabia, friend or foe? This is an issue that I've dealt with in the past here on Winds of Change, but right now I'm taking to task a recent article in Foreign Affairs that, as noted by the Belmont Club, seeks to Kremlinize the issue of Saudi Arabia into traditional Cold War divisions of moderate/hardliner, much the same way that has unfortunately been done in many media outlets on the issue of Iran in regards to the civilian government and the unelected clergy. Michael Scott Doran, the author of the article, is wrong in many interesting ways.

* For those of you just joining us, I have an analysis of recent events that have been largely ignored by Western media outlets in Dagestan, Thailand, Nigeria, and Iraq.

* Recent investigations by European law enforcement have identified London as al-Qaeda command and control center in Europe. I would note that blogosphere was talking about these Milan transcripts several weeks ago thanks to the efforts of Alphabet City.

Other Topics Today Include: Iraq Briefing; Iran Reports, USA Homeland Security Briefing; Osama's new video; the UK a terrorist haven; arrested Americans in the Philippines tied to MILF; Ahmed Hussein Abu al-Khir possibly captured; radical Islam in Bangladesh; 150 Saudis petition against education reform; Taiwan targeted by al-Qaeda; Nigerian Taliban; bin Laden's legacy; Taliban bombing in Kandahar; and suing the television.

Read The Rest...

With huge New Year's Eve celebrations and college football bowl games only days away, the U.S. government last month dispatched scores of casually dressed nuclear scientists with sophisticated radiation detection equipment hidden in briefcases and golf bags to scour five major U.S. cities for radiological, or "dirty," bombs, according to officials involved in the emergency effort. The call-up of Department of Energy radiation experts to Washington, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Baltimore was the first since the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It was conducted in secrecy, in contrast with the very public cancellation of 15 commercial flights into this country from France, Britain and Mexico -- the other major counterterrorism response of the holiday season.

If I see a casually dressed guy hauling a golf bag around New York City and his golf bag is making beeping noises, I'm taking the first plane to Sweden.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

French officials said Wednesday that they were looking for a man who did not show up to board canceled France Air Flight 68 in Paris on December 24, while senior U.S. officials said they had found "no derogatory information" on anyone on that flight.

Earlier in the day, French intelligence sources said that U.S. officials were concerned that the missing man -- Abdul Hay -- may be linked to terrorism, but U.S. officials told CNN he is absolutely not an Afghan man with a similar name who does have ties to terrorism.

French authorities are searching for a man who failed to show up for a scheduled Christmas Eve flight - one of the cancelled flights from that night.

Abdul Hay, an Afghan who escaped from U.S. custody in Afghanistan was an associate of Taliban intelligence man Mullah Mohammed Abdul Haq.

While U.S. reps say that they don't know if the Abdul Hay who booked the Christmas Eve flight is the same man as the one who escaped from custody, French officials are confirming that they are, indeed, the same person and that Hay has recently had access to an explosive device, one so small that it could not only be hidden on his person, but slipped past airport security.

Hay was traveling on a French passport.

[Various sources]

NYT reports that the main reason for the orange alert level is the feds are worried about dirty bombs:

With huge New Year's Eve celebrations and college football bowl games only days away, the U.S. government last month dispatched scores of casually dressed nuclear scientists with sophisticated radiation detection equipment hidden in briefcases and golf bags to scour five major U.S. cities for radiological, or "dirty," bombs, according to officials involved in the emergency effort.

***

Apparently, that worry has come and gone:

Commercial aviation could remain on high terror alert awhile longer, but U.S. officials said Tuesday the threat level for the rest of the nation could be lowered soon to yellow, or "elevated."

***

The potential for air-related terrorism is still a big concern:

The federal government has selected three companies, including Northrop Grumman, to develop anti-missile defense systems for the nation's 6,800 commercial airliners.

***
Patriot Act, British Version?

New powers for dealing with a major terrorist attack or natural disaster are to be unveiled.

The Civil Contingencies Bill is an attempt to shake up emergency laws dating back to the 1920s.

But civil rights groups fear the Bill gives too much power to the Government.

I wish I could tell you who wrote this, but the original source seems to be untrackable, as this has been making the blog/email rounds for about a month now. Hope you enjoy it. And remember: This is Satire!

At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney general John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a fearsome cult,", Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like "x" and "y" and refer to themselves as "unknowns", but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country."

"As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are 3 sides to every triangle," Ashcroft declared. When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

"I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence," the President said, adding: "Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line."

President Bush warned, "These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex."

Attorney General Ashcroft said, "As our Great Leader would say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is uncertainty of: though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks."

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A bicycle bomb killed at least 10 people in this southern city Tuesday, underlining the violence and insecurity still plaguing Afghanistan two years after the fall of the Taliban.

The blast left a residential street in eastern Kandahar strewn with wrecked bicycles, victims' blood and shattered glass from a passing truck, whose driver was among the dead.

All the victims appeared to be Afghans who were walking past when the blast occurred, Deputy Police Chief Salim Khan told The Associated Press. He said at least 15 other people were injured.

A soldier, Amanullah Popolzai, said authorities arrested a man spotted running away from the scene shortly before the explosion. The man, who appeared to be an Afghan, was caught trying to hide in a nearby home.

"This was the work of the Taliban. The man looked like he was a Talib fighter," Popolzai said.

[Full story at Fox]

From ABS-CBN:

France said on Monday it attached little credence to a previously unknown Islamic group's claim to have brought down a plane that crashed off Egypt, killing 133 French tourists and 15 other people.

Egypt again defended the safety record of Flash Airlines, operators of the Boeing 737 that plunged into the Red Sea on Saturday, but Switzerland issued a fresh statement that it had banned the Egyptian company from its airspace on safety grounds ...

... An anonymous caller claiming to represent a Yemen-based group called Ansar al-Haq (Followers of the Truth) told an international news agency the group had downed the plane and would also attack Air France planes unless the French government dropped plans to ban Islamic headscarves from state schools.

From CTV:

Two Canadian men were detained for suspected links to terrorism after acting strangely aboard a flight from France to the Dominican Republic, authorities said Monday.

The two were detained after Air Europa Flight 89 landed in Santo Domingo Sunday night, said Gen. Fernando Cruz Mendez, director of national Investigations. They have not been charged and authorities did not find any weapons, Cruz said.

"They acted very nervous on board," he said. "They went in and out of the bathrooms, including a few times together."

The Sunday Herald (Scotland) printed this report yesterday:

THE sudden movement of large numbers of highly trained al-Qaeda terrorists across the Middle East triggered the panic over possible attacks on Western aircraft which led to the grounding of international flights to the United States last week.

The Sunday Herald has learned that the US raised its terror alert to Code Orange – the second highest level – on December 21 when Washington discovered that trained al-Qaeda terrorists had been leaving their strongholds and hideouts in the Hadhramouth area east of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

The operatives have moved north and west bearing large quantities of shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles, a selection of other weapons and a variety of explosives.

Read the rest. Scare factor on a scale of 1-10: 7, depending on your level of belief.

Pakistan scientists have sold plans to make a nuclear bomb to Libya for "millions of pounds", Saif al-Islam, son of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadaffi has confirmed. In an interview to the "Sunday Times", Saif stated that Libya had bought nuclear components from a variety of black market dealers. "We dealt with an underground network of middle men and secret workshops". Some Arab sources, quoted in the Times, said some of the components for the Libyan nuclear programme were bought in Dubai and shipped to Libya.

[Full story]

A new audiotape broadcast on Arabic-language television network al-Jazeera likely features the voice of Osama bin Laden and was recorded recently, a CIA spokesman said Monday.

A theory on why he never shows himself on video: It would be too easy for analysts to determine where he is.

The guy may be evil, but he's not stupid.

Interesting: Military Split On How to Use Special Forces In Terror War

[T]the U.S. military may have missed chances to capture two of its most-wanted fugitives -- Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, and Ayman Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden -- during the past two years because of restrictions on Green Berets in favor of two other components of the Special Operations Command, the Delta Force and SEAL Team Six.

They said several credible sightings by CIA and military informants of Omar entering a mosque this spring in Kandahar, Afghanistan, were relayed to U.S. forces at nearby Firebase Gecko, where a Green Beret team was ready to deploy. But rather than send in the Green Berets, who were just minutes from the mosque, commanders followed strict military doctrine and called on the Delta Force, the team of commandos whose primary mission is to kill and capture targets such as Hussein.

In the several hours it took the Delta unit, based hundreds of miles away near Kabul, to review the information and prepare for the raid, Omar vanished, said the sources, all of whom advise Rumsfeld's senior aides.

Other informants reported spotting Zawahiri in a medical clinic in Gardez, Afghanistan, in the spring of 2002. Green Berets five minutes away were ordered to stand down so SEAL Team Six, another of the hunter-killer teams, could storm the clinic and capture or kill Zawahiri, according to the sources. But too much time elapsed during preparations, and Zawahiri escaped. The Special Operations Command declined to comment on the reports.

***

Supporters say units such as Delta are the only ones trained specifically to carry out the apprehension or assassination of high-value targets.

"By doctrine and training, targets like that belong to the Special Mission Units," said Richard H. Shultz Jr., a scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a Pentagon consultant. "That's what they are for."

The Pentagon's official position is that there is no conflict between the two approaches. Marshall Billingslea, formerly the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said both approaches are being followed and both are vital to achieving success against terrorist organizations. "The hearts and minds element is essential," Billingslea said.

Cross-post from OTB

Visitors coming into the U.S. on tourist, business and student visas will now be fingerprinted when they enter the country.

The move will affect approximately 24 million travelers. It does not affect visitors from the following places:

Andorra, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (for citizens with the unrestricted right of permanent abode in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man) [source: CNN]

The new program is called US-VISIT (United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology). Using an inkless fingerprinting system, customs officials will be able to check a database instantly to see if the traveler is on any terrorist lists or has a criminal background.

The 368 million dollar program will be put into place at land borders this year.

[Various sources]

[AP]

Afghanistan's constitutional convention has approved a historic new charter for the country.

Delegates overcame weeks of division and mistrust and agreed Sunday on a compromise aimed at binding together the nation's many ethnic groups.

The charter was amended to grant official status to northern minority languages where they are most commonly spoken. That issue had brought the meeting close to collapse.

After the new draft was circulated, the 502 delegates rose from their chairs in a giant tent. They stood in silence for about 30 seconds to signal their support.

The convention chairman asked them to "promise before God and our people to implement this constitution."

A U.N. representative calls the agreement "a huge success for the people of Afghanistan."

BBC has a summary of the key points of the constitution.

Ed Moltzen has a response to earlier critics of the Afghanistan war over in the OpEd section.

After four days of disruptions caused by security concerns, British Airways Flight 223 from London to Washington was again delayed Sunday, an airline spokeswoman said.

U.S. officials wanted more information from British Airways about the flight, which caused another delay of more than three hours from its planned departure at 3:05 p.m. (10:05 a.m. ET), spokeswoman Karen Franklin said...When asked for details about the kind of information sought by U.S. officials, Franklin would only describe it as "additional security information." "It's the same thing that caused the delay yesterday," Franklin said.

Via Reuters: Britain warned Sunday that travelers face years of severe security alerts like one that forced several international flights to be grounded last week amid fears of a Sept. 11-style terror attack.

I can hear the overhead announcement on the Hertz Rent-a-Car bus now: "We suggest you arrive 17 hours prior to your flight."

[via Jeff Jarvis]

One senior Whitehall official said: "There is a genuine security risk. We believe from reliable foreign intelligence sources that there are terrorists in Britain preparing to board planes and set off shoe bombs, almost certainly in a lavatory. We expect to have to cancel quite a few flights during the coming week."

Also, a BA spokesman said:

"There is no truth in American press reports that a number of our flights have been grounded because pilots have refused to fly with marshals. The flights have been halted for security reasons."

I'm sure we'd all rather it were the pilots.

This Knoxville News Sentinel / AP story suggests candidate Dean was soft on nuclear plant safety while Governor of Vermont. Read it here, and here's a taste:

Presidential hopeful Howard Dean, who accuses President Bush of being weak on homeland security, was warned repeatedly as Vermont governor about security lapses at his state's nuclear power plant and was told that the state was ill-prepared for a disaster at its most attractive terrorist target.

The warnings, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press, began in 1991 when a group of students was brought into a secure area of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant without proper screening. On at least two occasions, a gun or mock terrorists passed undetected into the plant during security tests.

During Dean's final year in office in 2002, an audit concluded that despite a decade of repeated warnings of poor safety at Vermont Yankee, Dean's administration was poorly prepared for a nuclear disaster ...

... Environmental groups sent Dean repeated letters about the plant's security and safety. During a 1998 federal security test, mock terrorists sneaked a fake gun past security and six times scaled, undetected, the plant's security perimeter fence.

The 1998 test was alarming because seven years earlier, protesters had managed to breach the same security by scaling the fence or rafting down an adjacent river. The 2001 security test again penetrated Vermont Yankee's security.

The Guardian reports on the search for the UK terrorists at the heart of the current air travel concerns. Read it here, and here's a taste:

Intelligence officials hunting Islamist terrorists suspected of planning attacks on British Airways flights believe they may be carrying legitimate American, UK or other European passports to try to beat airport security ...

... Intercepts from a Western intelligence agency seen by The Observer reveal that jihadists regard London as a key financing and recruiting centre for their efforts.

Although Whitehall sources strongly denied suggestions that UK passport holders were suspected in the threat to British Airways, telephone intercepts seen by this newspaper make clear that Islamist terror cells are deliberately targeting 'well-educated' foreigners, Britons among them.

In one call, an unidentified jihadist tells a colleague: 'We need foreigners. We have Albanians, Swiss and English... all that is important is that they are of a high cultural level ... businessmen, professors, engineers, doctors and teachers.'

BBC:

The Capitol building in Washington - which houses the US Congress - has been evacuated after a "possible hazardous substance" was found in its basement.
Several dozen people were led out of the building without incident, a police spokeswoman said. Congress was in holiday recess at the time.

Police teams are in the building investigating the substance.

Police across the United States have recently been on high alert for fear of possible terror attacks.

8 PM Update: FOXNews just made mention of DC Fire Department responding to a hazmat call at the US Capitol. Still nothing on CNN.

8:05 PM Update: More here from Channel News Asia, noting the evacuation was at 3:30 PM, and that the building is still cordoned off ... still nothing on CNN or FOX, either online or TV.

8:07 PM Update: FOXNews TV now reports that people are being let into the building, and that the material was not hazardous.

Welcome to Color Orange ...

The flight to DC left as planned, but BA has again cancelled the afternoon departure to the Saudi capital. Here's the ABC News report.

Just found this very interesting, and specific, report via The South Australia Advertiser:

A BRITISH Airways trans-Atlantic flight was cancelled yesterday because officials believed a female passenger planned to blow up the plane over Washington.

The last-minute decision to cancel Flight 223 for the third day running was based on a tip-off from US security operatives.

They warned the woman, almost certainly linked to al-Qaida, intended to hide eight to 12 ounces of plastic explosives on her body, Britain's Daily Mirror reported.

During the Boeing 747 flight, the woman was instructed to go to the toilet, remove the material and detonate a blast to bring down the airliner over the US capital.

The New York Post is reporting [in their usual alarming fashion] that one of the flights cancelled this week was part of a terror plot to crash into the Capitol building [See previous TCP story].

An al Qaeda terror team has been plotting to hijack Washington-bound British Airways Flight 223 and crash it into the nation's capital, officials said yesterday.....The information about Flight 223, from London's Heathrow Airport to Dulles International Airport, came from a foreign source inside al Qaeda, who claimed the terror group wanted to strike during the holiday, sources said.

Meanwhile, DEBKA [*Grain of Salt Alert*] reports that al Qaeda is threatening to nuke New York on February 2nd. Their information comes from a website (since taken down) that linked to a video with information about the eventual terrorist attack:

The video clip showed three possible scenarios: 1. A bomb or giant fireball from the skies that will cover the metropolis with a radioactive cloud. 2. A storm of radioactive clouds that will topple skyscrapers one by one, along with the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge. 3. An explosion on board a charter aircraft that will cause a radioactive cloud to spread over the city.

The video clip was accompanied by large, red-lettered Arabic captions saying: “If God wills it, the end of America is near.”

You can see the video in its full glory by following a link at this website.

So reports the Guardian / AP:

"The Department for Transport has confirmed to us that they are satisfied that it is safe for the aircraft to go,'' said an airline spokeswoman, on customary condition of anonymity. ``Safety and security is our absolute priority and would not be compromised. We would not operate any flight unless we were satisfied it was safe to do so.''

The lead at FOXNews is "terror not suspected." Go here to read their coverage, which is as solid as anyone else’s, now that the story is all over the wires.

And peace to the families of the victims.

From The Australian :

German police experts believe the various videos and tapes attributed to al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States are authentic, according to a report quoted by the weekly Focus which goes on sale on Monday.

It said experts had ruled out the possibility that the tapes had been put together from archive material or otherwise manipulated.

According to Focus, the analyses established that bin Laden uses modern recording equipment, including a computer. The experts also put forward the hypothesis that the terrorist network has its own recording studio in which it handles its raw material.

The German specialists even analysed a bird-song that could be heard in the background on one of the tapes, and identified it as coming from a bird which only lived in certain regions.

Since September 11, 2001 around 15 video and audio recordings have been attributed to bin Laden by various media. The most recent was broadcast by the Dubai-based satellite news channel Al-Arabiya on December 20.

From the FOXNews report:

An initial statement from aviation ministry ruled out terrorism, calling the crash an "accident" that may have been caused by a mechanical problem ...

... The weather was clear in Sharm el-Sheikh and other flights were taking off without incident, officials said.

Sharm el-Sheik is a popular Red Sea tourist resort that also frequently hosts major political and economic summits. Egypt has held several meetings on Middle East peace there, including one in which President Bush met with regional leaders in June over the "road map" plan toward creating a Palestinian state.

Local news media reported Saturday that vacationing British Prime Minister Tony Blair was to meet there later in the day with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The Al-Jazeera story just hit the web. Changes in the details via Al-Jazeera: 135 passengers (127 of whom were French tourists), 6 crew; the plane was headed to France, not Cairo. Elements of the rest of the story, however, are confusing ... perhaps from translation.

This story just hit the wires and is still developing. The details so far (via Ohio.com/AP):

A charter airliner with 135 people aboard - most of them French tourists - crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff early Saturday from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, according to airport officials in Cairo. No survivors were immediately found.

The Boeing 737 jet took off shortly before 5 a.m. (10 p.m. EST) and quickly disappeared from radar about seven miles south of the airport, airport officials said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

The officials said 127 passengers and eight crew members were aboard the jet operated by the private Egyptian company Air Flash en route to Cairo, and most were French tourists.

Rescue teams rushed to the scene but found no immediate survivors.

An initial statement from the Ministry of Civil Aviation called the crash an "accident" and said crews were searching for the wreckage. It gave no ideas on the possible cause.

Question: Is it interesting to anyone else that it took nearly four hours for this story hit the wires? The crash happened at 3 GMT, and the story broke via AP around 7 GMT. Just curious.

Update: Here are links to the developing CNN and FOXNews stories.

Philippines Daily News reports that Ninoy Aquino International Airport has asked travelers to the US to check in 30 minutes earlier to undergo stepped-up security checks linked to the aviation alert in the United States.

The New Yorker has re-posted a September, 2002 profile of Egyptian physician and al Qaeda No. 2 / operational mastermind Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. Read it here.

Read the details at Stuff (New Zealand):

United States-led naval forces said they seized about 1.3 tonnes of hashish on a boat near the mouth of the Gulf overnight, the third interception of drugs in two weeks in what they said was a suspected al Qaeda smuggling operation.

They detained 15 people in the dhow, a traditional wooden cargo boat, carrying drugs with a street value of $US11 million ($NZ17 million) in the northern Arabian Sea, a US Central Command statement said.

US officials said last week 10 suspects seized since December 15 from boats carrying drugs in the Gulf region were sent to a US base in Afghanistan for questioning amid mounting American concern about al Qaeda involvement in drug trafficking.

A source close to the flight investigations has informed The Command Post that the cancellations and escorts are not related to specific terror attacks, but to the refusal of Air France and British Airways, among other airlines, to allow armed U.S. Marshalls on board their flights.

According to the source, the U.S. has told both airlines that if they won't put armed marshalls inside of the planes, then the U.S. will put them outside the planes, thus the "escorts" of F-16's some of the flights have received in the past few days.

The N.Y. Times also has something on this.

To be continued....

Asa Hutchinson, the U.S. undersecretary for border and transportation security, told CNN:

"We make the judgments based upon the security measures that are in place, the risk that's assessed, coordination with the other government -- and I think we've made some really good decisions."

She also said that the drastic step of cancelling a flight would only occur if there were specific information about a possible terror attack.

*DEBKA Alert Level: Two Grains of Salt*

The FBI in Alaska are looking for two passengers who chartered a flight from Fairbanks to Allakaket near the trans-Alaska oil pipeline using a known Arab alias, but never showed up for flight.

We'll see if anything comes of this. Generally, when DEBKA is right, they are 100% spot on. But when they are wrong, they are waaay off.

From ABC News:

The decision to cancel some British Airways flights on the London-Washington route in the last two days was based in part on information that a team of al Qaeda operatives planned to take over a flight during the New Year's period and crash it into the U.S. capital, ABCNEWS has learned ...

... ABCNEWS has learned that the cancellations on the London-Washington route were due to information from a "human source" overseas and analysis of other intelligence. The human source, whose credibility U.S. officials have been unable to confirm, said plans were in place to specifically take over Flight 223 and crash it into Washington ...

... "There is good and precise intelligence that there is more than one al Qaeda or al Qaeda-like group operating against the U.S.," he said. "One is based in Central America and the other is based in Europe — in London or Paris."

This time, it's a flight to Saudi Arabia:

In a statement Friday night, British Airways said Flight BA263 to Riyadh, which had been due to leave Heathrow at 1335 GMT Saturday had been canceled, along with the return flight BA262 from Riyadh, which had been due to leave the Saudi Arabian city on Sunday.

Due to security concerns, of course.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner writes a Q&A on the current the BA air security scare.

Q: Six Air France flights to LA were grounded in December. Do the Americans ever get it wrong?

There is a suspicion amongst some people the Americans do not always get it right. There is some evidence for this.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

Read the story here at BBC:

Junior Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau confirmed reports that US fighter jets escorted two Air France flights into Los Angeles earlier this week ...

... Mr Bussereau also strongly suggested that rumours of French military escorts for some passenger planes were also true ...

... But France confirmed that particular fears about Paris-Los Angeles flights, which led to six cancellations, were groundless ...

... Mr Bussereau also revealed that at least one flight which the US authorities had concerns about had been authorised by France.

"We thought that all security measures had been taken, that the verifications of passengers had been such that this flight had every reason to fly," he said.

Or so is the story coming from the AP, posted here by KFOR:

They were six names that sounded strikingly like those of terror suspects French police had been told to look out for by the F-B-I.

But a French official now says six cases of mistaken identity were the reason a half-dozen Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles were canceled last week.

U-S officials had told French counterparts that al-Qaida operatives might try to board the planes before Christmas.

Officials say errors in spelling and transcription of Arabic named played a role in the mix-up. One of the names on the list provided by the F-B-I turned out to be that of a five-year-old child.

Max Boot makes an interesting point:

TO JUDGE by Libya's promise to give up its weapons of mass destruction, President Bush's get-tough approach in Iraq and Afghanistan has impressed our enemies. But what about our ostensible allies?

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia profess to be cooperating in the war on terror, yet they have done a lot more than Libya to spread terrorism and weapons of mass murder around the world. And, unlike Moammar Kadafi, they have no reason to fear a visit from the 3rd Infantry Division if they don't mend their ways. After all, the United States doesn't invade its "friends," right? But with friends like these . . .

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have published investigative articles showing that Pakistan was probably a prime supplier of nuclear technology to Iran. This is quite plausible given the well-documented links between Pakistan and another member of the "axis of evil"--North Korea. Last year, U.S. spy satellites photographed a Pakistani cargo plane in North Korea loading missile parts. There is widespread suspicion that, in return for this technology, Pakistan shared nuclear know-how with Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, parts of the Pakistani government continue to aid the Taliban insurgency against the U.S.-backed government of Afghanistan. Supposedly outlawed extremist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba are allowed to openly raise money and spread incendiary propaganda.

Saudi Arabia is equally complicit in helping our enemies. The Saudi government spends billions of dollars supporting madrasas, or Koranic schools, and mosques around the world that preach a virulently anti-American strain of Islam. These institutions churn out jihadists faster than Delta Force can hunt them down, not only in Saudi Arabia but also in places like Pakistan.

Abd al Aziz bin Issa, a leading Al Qaeda member, recently called Saudi Arabia "the primary source of funds for most jihad movements."

***

The superficially reassuring thing about Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is that the leaders of both countries, Crown Prince Abdullah and President Pervez Musharraf, have disassociated themselves from such extremist rhetoric. Both claim to be allies in the war on terror--and to some extent they have delivered by detaining some suspects and closing some bank accounts. But neither one has done nearly enough to crack down on the extremists who have penetrated their own governments.

Cross-post from OTB

The drumbeat of international flight cancellations and delays into the U.S. continues Friday. British Airways has just issued this apology, on its web site, to its passengers:

Following the latest advice from the UK government received this afternoon, British Airways has cancelled today's flight BA223 from London Heathrow to Washington due to security reasons.

BA223 was due to depart today, Friday January 2, from Heathrow at 1505 local time arriving in Washington at 1820 local time.

It is expected that other flights across the British Airways network will operate as normal today.

We apologise to our customers booked to travel on BA223 for the inconvenience caused.

Meanwhile, Air France continues reporting "safety"-related delays on its flights into the New York area, including:

* Air France flight 22, from Paris to JFK, was delayed from departure "as a safety precaution." It is scheduled to land at 10:53 a.m. at JFK;

* Air France flight 4, from Paris to Newark, was delayed from departure "as a safety precaution." It is scheduled to land at 3:08 p.m. at Newark;

* Air France flight 8994 from Paris to JFK operated by Delta, was delayed from departure as a safety precaution." It is scheduled to land at 3:10 p.m.

No word from Air France whether these are delays caused by more extensive screening than usual, or if other measures are being taken.

(Cross-posted at Late Final.)

So reports Reuters. You may read additional local coverage of the closing of the Valdez oil terminal here's in the Anchorage Daily News. It notes, in part, that all tankers were moved out of Prince William Sound.

This ABC News story confirms that Mexico cancelled an Aeromexico flight to the US "earlier this week":

A scheduled U.S.-bound flight from Mexico was canceled because of security concerns.

"The government of Mexico made the decision to cancel Aeromexico Flight 490 after the U.S. government shared threat information with the Mexican government," Department of Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said.

Previous reports said the plane turned around in midair, but Roehrkasse and Mexican officials said it never took off. Roehrkasse denied that the U.S. government told Mexico it would refuse the plane landing rights.

Update: Wired reports this flight was cancelled on New Year's Eve, and it was to fly from Mexico City to LAX.

In recent days, several flights besides the already noted Air France and BA flights were either delayed or cancelled.

Our sources tell us that two Aeromexico flights were either turned around or delayed this week and several planes at Dulles underwent "reverse screening" where passengers were interviewed and searched for suspicious items.

Other internation flights headed into the U.S. were grounded after U.S. authorities said the passengers were not properly screened.

According to one source, Air France will be turning over passenger lists for "risky" flights before takeoff.

[Links forthcoming]

Also for the record, Air France 68, which was cancelled on Christmas Eve and received military escort into LAX the past two nights, is in the air and on its way to L.A. with an estimated arrival time of 9:49 PM.

I was going to post a link where you can track its status, but it's interesting ... there's no consitency across sites about the facts of the flight.

This flight tracker has a 9:49 PM arrival.

The Orbitz tracker has an 8:59 PM arrival, as does Air France.

FlyteComm's tracker shows a 7:39 PM arrival, and graphically has the flight off course (not that I'd expect transatlantic graphics to be very accurate).

USAToday's tracker shows a 4:05 PM arrival (the original arrival time) with no update ... same story at RLM Software.

Make of this what you will.

Update: RLM software now seems to have the best information ... track AF 68 here.

Final Update: It would appear AF68 arrived in LAX as expected, if late. No word of escorts ... click this pic to see my screen cap of the flight tracking (Aero-Geeks Gone Wild!).

CNN reports that the British Air flight held at Dulles last night also received military escort into DC ...

So say CNN: As an added measure of security under the nation's elevated threat level, the U.S. Coast Guard has temporarily halted the transfer of oil onto tankers from Alaska's port of Valdez. Read the rest here.

In addition to the British Airways flight that was cancelled before it left for Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., an Air France flight that landed at Newark in New York this afternoon was delayed for "safety" reasons.

No official word from U.S. authorities yet has been reported as a reason for this delay.

(Cross-posted at Late Final)

I fly weekly, so I find this international air terror threat particularly compelling. Here's the latest on British Air: SFGate / AP has a confirming report that BA has cancelled one of its three daily London / DC flights "following security advice from the government." And as Michele noted below, it is the same flight ... 223 ... that was held on the tarmac at Dulles last night.

Update: And for the record, here's a screen cap from the BA website ...

[Update to this story]

CNN is reporting that "the names of about a dozen passengers matched those on a terrorist watch list," according to U.S. officials.

A few moments ago, Fox TV aired a report which stated that the same flight, BA 223, was cancelled on advice from the government.

Updates as we receive them.

NewsMax is carrying a story, citing the Middle Eastern Media Research Institute, which claims that Ahmad Hassan Abu Al-Khir, the top deputy of Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri, has been arrested. The intel apparently comes from “Islamist sources in London”, in contact with MEMRI.

Some other maritime-terror links you may want to visit:

* Here's a UPI article that talks of al-Qaida's "fleet" as having from 15 to as many as 300 ships of all shapes and size ... and that notes "for overworked maritime security officials, it is no longer a question of 'if,' but rather, 'when' and 'where.'"

* Here is the Dept. of Homeland Security press release on the $179 Million in grants awarded to secure America's ports ... and here's the TSA Excel spreadsheet showing who received what.

* Go here to visit the Maritime Security Council's Anti-Shipping Activity Database, and read incident reports therein (they are, BTW, fascinating).

* Go here to visit the US Coast Guard's Maritime Security page.

U.S. troops and helicopters killed as many as 14 enemy fighters in clashes in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the military said Thursday.

Three U.S. soldiers were wounded in the battle Wednesday some 12 miles northeast of Shkin, a town in Paktika province near the Pakistan border.

[CNN]

ABC News reports "intelligence officials" as saying terror strikes from the sea could be even more catastrophic than those from the air. The story also notes:

They fear a hijacked oil tanker could be rigged with explosives or a radioactive dirty bomb could be smuggled ashore in a shipping container.

But almost 5,000 ships and about four out of every five of the nation's ports, ferry terminals and fuel-chemical tank farms failed to meet a Wednesday deadline for submitting security plans showing how they will deal with those potential threats.

NBC-TV is reporting that Air France flight 68 received a military escort into LAX tonight ... the second consecutive evening that #68 received such escort. Notably, AF 68 was also among those flights cancelled last week due to security concerns.

Ed. comment: Someone, somewhere, knows something of which the rest of us are not privy ...

From Reuters:

U.S. security officials over New Year's Eve detained a British Airways Boeing 747 at a Washington, D.C., airport and spent several hours questioning passengers.

FBI and Transportation Security Administration agents conducted "routine" questioning of passengers aboard BA Flight 223 from London when it arrived at Dulles International Airport and no arrests were made, an FBI spokeswoman said on Wednesday.